Over 100 yarn supply bobbins may be associated with a conventional circular knitting machine. Particularly when the yarn being knitted includes cotton fiber, the fiber waste generated by engagement of the yarn with the machine's yarn feeding, guiding and/or knitting components is quite substantial. The fiber waste problem is aggravated by the fact that knitting machines are being operated at increasingly faster speeds, which increases the rate and amount of fiber waste generation.
After fiber waste has become airborne, it may settle upon the yarn feeding and guiding devices or other components of the knitting section of the knitting machine where the fiber waste was generated, or upon one or more neighboring machines. This increases the possibility of yarn breakage, defective stitch formation, and general degradation of the quality of the knitted fabric.
Previously proposed apparatuses for removing fiber waste from circular knitting machines have employed fans or air blowers located above the machines. However, these merely displace the fiber waste from one location to another and do not collect it since fiber waste cannot be efficiently collected by merely subjecting it to a blast of air generated by a fan, blower or the like. It has also been proposed to enclose each of the knitting machines in a curtain-like sheet, and to provide adjacent each machine an exhaust duct into which a machine operator may introduce fiber waste generated by the machine and collected by the operator. Providing separate exhaust ducts in association with each of the knitting machines is quite expensive, however. Additionally, the curtain-like sheets limit access to the knitting machines, and rapidly become unsanitary due to adherence of lint, oil, dirt and the like to them.